


heaven can't help me now

by bunivy



Series: the anti-soulmates series [1]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Established Relationship, F/M, One Shot, Sabrina and Nick are not soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, and they're gonna be, anti-soulmate, but they really want to be, mostly two idiots in love, nabrina, slight angst I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:34:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24695341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunivy/pseuds/bunivy
Summary: Soulmates are a universal law, the way of life. Sabrina's soulmate is Harvey, but she'll pick Nick every time, in every way.
Relationships: Nicholas Scratch/Sabrina Spellman
Series: the anti-soulmates series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981421
Comments: 18
Kudos: 110





	heaven can't help me now

**Author's Note:**

> Don't get me wrong--Soulmate tropes are cool. I love them! But there's something so incredibly beautiful about two people who would go against everything to choose each other.
> 
> I wrote this instead of sleeping, and edited very quickly, so sorry for any errors! Especially in regards to tense.

“What are you saying?” Harvey asks, staring at her through bewildered eyes. Sabrina stands there, unrelenting. She’s defying fate, she’s going against all odds, but when has she ever allowed the world to break her in? If all of the Gods and Goddesses want to stand in her way, want to send their best archers and hounds after her, then she’ll wield whatever weapon she has and fight her way out. She isn’t anyone’s prey, not even love’s. Aphrodite be damned. 

“I’m saying I can’t do this anymore,” she says. “And I don’t _ want _ to, either.” 

Harvey’s mouth goes flat, in that disapproving way of his. He’s always said he’s loved her wild side, but sometimes she’s not so sure. He certainly hasn’t as of late. “Is this because of Nick?” he asks grimly. 

“It’s not because of Nick,” Sabrina insists. She’s lying only a bit. 

“Why can’t this be good enough? We’ve talked about it...I don’t...I don’t care if you go to him. Whenever you want, if it’s what you want. So long as we come back here, together. Because this is where we’re meant to be, what we’re meant to  _ do, _ Brina...It’s fate.” Harvey runs a hand through his hair, grasping at the ends of his brown locks. “What am  _ I _ supposed to do alone?” 

“Find your own happiness, Harvey,” Sabrina whispers. “I love you, but not in the way I’m meant to. You don’t either. You haven’t for a long time. Admit it.” She pauses again, clenching her fist at her side. “It’s not about Nick, not all the way...It’s about doing what  _ I _ want to do. I won’t follow the rules just because everyone else is.” 

“It’s not rules—it’s  _ fate!” _ Harvey repeats, a little harsher this time. He still thinks he can talk her down from whatever it is she’s hung on, and that’s the problem. Harvey’s never been able to do that. “No one’s ever gone against it and succeeded, Sabrina. You’ve heard the stories of those who’ve tried. They end up alone...and without their soulmate, without anyone, they deteriorate. It’s predestined. Calculated.” Another pause. He starts to look fearful. “It’s what we know.” 

She understands his worries. Sometimes, soulmates stray. They get curious, and those who stray too far are always painted as unfaithful, not just to their soulmates but to the selfless celestials watching over them. No-gooders who can’t appreciate the natural simplicities and blessings of life. Rogues and rebels. Trouble-seekers. They should just be grateful. 

Those rarities, those who dare to step outside the status quo, they don’t fit in anywhere. And that takes a toll. It wears away, eats and swallows, leaving behind a shell to aimlessly wander the earth. Unloved. Undesired. 

“I won’t end up like that,” Sabrina says. “Neither will he. I won’t let it get that way. _ We _ won’t.” 

Harvey drops down on the sofa in their living room, a tiny threadbare thing pressed up against their plain wall. “This is ridiculous.” 

She stays there, in the center of the hallway, looming like a ghost. She doesn’t sit beside him, doesn’t want to offer comfort and doesn’t want it back, either. Not now and not from him. 

It’s not fair, she thinks, to expect people to live in little predetermined bubbles and be happy with what they’re given. Sure, there’s compatibility. Harvey is soothing and calm, she’s wild and abrasive. They’re meant to work out, to temper one another. And they do. But she doesn’t want that. She wants to be lifted and pushed to shine, not calmed down and dulled. She wants someone who will go to war with her, not hold her back or beg her to stay. She wants someone to sing to. Real, organic words that come from  _ her. _ She wants someone to compare her hair to the moon and mean it. She wants love to come from within, not from some force outside of her control. 

Most of all, she wants her own path. One that’s not decided for her before she’s even born. Before she even has a name, or a single thought in her mind. 

She glances down at her wrist, where the little mark sits. It’s tiny, the size of her fingernail. Harvey bears the same one. How cool, she’d once thought as a child. She and Harvey were soulmates, best friends, too. But as she grew, she began to wonder. And when she met Nick at the bar where she and Roz liked to sing karaoke, she threw the whole idea out the window. Balled it right up and chucked it out with yesterday’s trash. 

She grew angry, she threw tantrums. She cried the first time she told Harvey about Nick, and Harvey hadn’t been upset. He’d been disappointed. Not with her, but with the universe. That’s what scares him the most: the fact that he’s begun to doubt everything he knows. She blames herself, too, for tainting him. For ruining it for him. 

“I’m sorry,” Sabrina whispers. 

It takes a second for his voice to reach her. “I am, too.” 

And Sabrina goes. She packs her things in a bag, only taking the things she really needs. The tiny relics from her aunts back home, the necklace her cousin accidentally left the last time he’d stayed over, the tiny ring of opal Nick had given her several nights ago, when she’d snuck away to find him in the dark. 

She slips it on her ring finger and packs some of her clothing and necessities. Then, she pauses at the door, looking back at Harvey. He’s standing in the hallway now, leaning against the wall and watching her go. 

“I wish you the best, Harvey,” she says. He nods once, and she’s on her way, never looking back. 

The streets are wet and cold in the little city they live in. She misses her home, her  _ real _ home, constantly. The one she lived in before they moved out here for Harvey’s new job. She’s not mad, though, because this is where she met Nick. In a city of smog and very little green, she’s found a boy with a pretty smile and a mark she doesn’t recognize but loves anyway. 

She’s going to take him home as soon as she can, present him to her aunts without worrying over what they’ll say. Soon. She just has to change the world first. 

Sabrina gets into his small apartment easily. It’s the middle of night, but he’s forgotten to lock the door again. She’ll lecture him about it later. 

He’s asleep when she finds him, dark hair poking out against white sheets. Soft snores radiate through the room, and she almost feels bad about waking him. Almost. 

She’s diving into bed before she can remind herself to be careful. He’s grumbling awake, shifting around to look at her through bleary, squinted eyes. Once he’s sure it’s her, he pulls her giggling form down until she’s flush against him and he’s nuzzling into the nape of her neck, sighing a sweet melody for her. Absentmindedly, she runs her fingers over the little mark on the back of his shoulder, the one meant not for her, but someone else, and thinks about how lucky they are to have found each other in a world so strange. 

This is what soulmates really are, she decides. It’s fighting for one another over and over, no matter the odds. 

She feels safer than she ever has with Harvey, tucked away in Nick’s arms, hidden from the rest of the world, knowing that if it comes down to it, they’ll protect one another with everything they’ve got. 

“Hi, little love,” he whispers into her hair, voice groggy from sleep. His breath feathers over her skin and makes her shiver. Nick’s told her once about how things hadn’t worked out with his soulmate, how they’d died in an accident some years after splitting with Nick, and how he was confused and lost for a while, wandering until he finally found Sabrina. His girl with hair like moonlight. Who sang to him in a bar in an endless crowd, fearless as could be, and drew him in. 

He’s adamant he’s never loved anyone like he loves her, and she believes him, because she’s seen the way he looks at her when he says it. He means it, and not because he’s supposed to. Not because a celestial being somewhere wired his soul to. 

“Run away with me,” Sabrina says. “Tonight. Run away with me.” 

Nick’s poor, sleep-addled brain leads him to say, in an overly confused manner, “but I’m _ sleeping.” _

“Then wake up,” Sabrina says, rolling onto him, pinning him onto his back. She slides her hands up his bare chest, over his neck, and into his hair, where she grasps and gently pulls him forward. She steals his lips, like a thief in the night. The same way she stole his heart. 

Nick pulls her body against his and groans low. It sends tremors up her body, nearly making her reconsider leaving so soon. 

_ “Now  _ you’re awake.” 

“What time is it?” Nick asks, grinning crookedly at her, his hand sneaking lower down her back. She reaches out to ruffle his already mussed hair, and he grumbles in protest, flopping back down on the bed seconds later. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Sabrina insists. “Wake up. Pack your things. We’re leaving.” 

“We’re...what?” Nick asks as he squints to check the time on the clock. It’s past midnight. “Where?” 

Sabrina smiles wide and looks down at the boy sprawled out beneath her. She knows love—true love, not the predestined, calculated sort—is real, because his dark, night-sky eyes have quickly become her favorite color. “Anywhere we want,” she tells him. “Wherever we want.’ 

“But—” 

“I don’t want him, Nick. I want  _ you.”  _

_ I’ll always pick you, _ she thinks,  _ the laws of the universe can’t stop me. _

She holds her ringed hand up under the patch of dull streetlight peering in through his window. The opal stone glimmers subtly in all its wonderous shades, and Nick’s grin extends into a full one. She kisses him again. Hard. Blistering with heat.  _ True. _

“Let’s bring down the world, babe,” he says against her lips. 

It’s a promise, and she feels things finally click into place. Like a broken bone finding its way back together. 


End file.
